Chaos Led to Killing by Tuffree, Lawyer Says

By MACK REED

July 31, 1996 12 AM PT

TIMES STAFF WRITER

A tragic chain of botched messages and bad decisions led to the panicked gunfight that killed a Simi Valley police officer, defense attorneys told Ventura County jurors Tuesday in the murder trial of Daniel Allan Tuffree.

Tuffree, 49, shot Officer Michael F. Clark to death, Deputy Public Defender Howard Asher admitted in his opening statement.

But Asher argued that Tuffree does not deserve to be convicted of first-degree murder for Clark’s killing--which carries a possible death sentence--or of deadly assault and attempted murder for also shooting at Officer Michael Pierce.

“Chaos is the most accurate term to describe what happened at Daniel Tuffree’s house,” he said. “Mistakes, miscommunications and misinterpretations led up to the confrontation. And panic took over from there.”

Clark’s last day alive unfolded like a horrific children’s game of “telephone” that never should have happened, Asher said.

Tuffree, desperate to maintain a Valium prescription he had been using too quickly, asked a pharmacist for a refill several days early, Asher said.

When refused, Tuffree complained to his psychiatrist’s office, lying that someone had stolen 10 to 15 of the pills, Asher said.

When the psychiatrist said through an aide that he could not have more Valium a week early, Tuffree took the complaint to his doctor, yelling at the office staff over the phone, Asher said.

“He’s attempting to manipulate the office staff of Dr. Hansen,” Asher said. “By this time, Daniel Tuffree has become a royal pain.”

Meanwhile, varying versions of Tuffree’s complaint passed from doctors to insurance officials to psychiatric caseworkers--each of whom exaggerated in the retelling, Asher said.

Unable to reach Tuffree by phone, an HMO official wrote a distorted report “that [the psychiatrist] recommended [Tuffree] get a blood level done, that she has terminated her therapeutic relationship with the patient and that he needs to get into detox,” Asher told jurors.

This, Asher said, was the distorted story by the time a psychiatric caseworker called police: that Tuffree had been using alcohol and Valium for several days, that his insurance company was trying to get him into detox and that he was not responding to their calls.

Dispatchers sent Clark, a former LAPD Devonshire Division officer who had been on the Simi Valley force only a few months.

Clark knocked on Tuffree’s door. When no one answered, Asher said, Clark began talking to neighbors, who told him that the man inside had guns, liked to shoot and was “kind of a nut.”

Clark called for backup, and Sgt. Anthony Anzilotti, who had confiscated a gun from Tuffree three years earlier, arrived. Pierce arrived soon after.

“All of a sudden, we’re no longer on a routine check-the-welfare call,” Asher said. “The neighbor has added the element of risk.”

Anzilotti, gun drawn, led the other two officers into the side yard of Tuffree’s house, where Clark called out to Tuffree through the closed kitchen window, saying police wanted to check on his alcohol and drug use, Asher said.

Meanwhile, Tuffree “is not disturbing anybody,” Asher said. “He’s not threatening anybody. His agenda was to drink some wine and beer, stay home, take a little Valium and mellow out.”

When he spotted Clark, Tuffree hid at first, wanting to avoid a confrontation.

Then he approached the window with hands below the sill, telling them he was fine and ordering them off his property.

Clark asked, then demanded that Tuffree show his hands.

“There’s no question he harbors hostility toward the Police Department,” Asher said. “He makes a very big mistake and picks up his gun. He wants them to leave, and he shows them the gun.”

At that point, Clark yelled, “He’s got a gun,” ran past the window and began firing at the house, Asher said. And Tuffree shot back, killing Clark.

“Daniel Tuffree is a complex man, a man with psychiatric problems,” Asher told jurors. “You’ll hear he’s under the care of a psychiatrist . . . and you’ll hear that Mr. Tuffree feels victimized by burglaries at his home and by a stalker.”

And he told jurors they would hear a police interview in which Tuffree insisted, “I never intended to kill anyone. The idea that a policeman had died came as a total surprise . . . I didn’t expect a gun confrontation. Why didn’t they just leave?”

Testimony in Tuffree’s trial began late Tuesday morning, with Det. Thomas Marshall saying he had seized a .40-caliber Glock pistol from Tuffree’s house in a November 1992, search and given it back six months later.

And witnesses began describing the first of Tuffree’s increasingly agitated telephone calls in search of Valium.

Testimony is set to continue this morning.